It is indispensable to keep watching rapid developments of the high-tech industry worldwide.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

No. 635: Think, and you can operate a home appliance (November 2, 2012)

Technology:

A smart house was
shown to the public on November 1. In this house, you can operate a wheelchair
and a home electric appliance only by forming your idea on how you want them to
do. That is, the sensor attached to the head of the resident transmits the
change of brain waves to the computer that gives instructions to a wheelchair. The
smart house was developed jointly by Sekisui House, Shimadzu, and NTT. The
research team plans to put the smart house technology into practical use in
2020.

The system utilizes
the phenomenon that brain waves and the blood flow in the brain change when a
man forms an idea. It detects the change of brain waves using light transmissive
inside of the body. By comparing the data of brain waves with preinstalled
data, it reads the instructions that the resident gives. Patterns of brain
waves are stored in a database, and brain waves coming from the resident are
compared with those in the database via the network. Various sensors of infrared
light and ultrasonic wave are buried in the walls and ceilings of a detached
house. A wheelchair and a home electric appliance can respond to the
instructions in 6-13 seconds, and the probability that they can respond faithfully
to them is between 70% and 80%.

The technology to
operate a machine by reading brain waves is called brain machine interface “BMI”
technology. Shimadzu has already succeeded in miniaturizing a device to read rain
waves to the size mountable on a wheelchair. The smart house was
aired by NHK. Please click here to see the video.